It’s
Wednesday evening in Beslan and 29 people gather at the new
Russian Red Cross (RRC) community centre at the local Palace
of Culture. Oksana Tanklayeva, a psychologist at the centre,
oversees the weekly tea party.
“During the home visits the Red Cross visiting nurses
invite people to the weekly tea parties at the centre. At first,
people are shy, they come not knowing what to expect or what
to do. Now we have some guests who have come for the second
and third time. We prepare some entertainment for them and try
to create a homely, family atmosphere here. Our guests help
us prepare and serve tea and then we sit and talk together,
listen to poems, remember family stories or sing songs.”
These gatherings are one of the many events that take place
at the community centre, which opened just over one month ago,
on 15 May, to celebrate the anniversary of the establishment
of Russian Red Cross, in 1867. Several hundred residents attended
the event to hear speeches and meet actor Egor Beroyev, originally
from Ossetia, who showed his new movie Turkish Gambit.
The centre, funded by the International Federation as well as
through national and international donations, is staffed with
four psychologists, 20 nurses and 15 regular personnel. It offers
counselling and classes in computing, English, photography,
folk dancing and aerobics.
On June 1 there was a children’s chalk drawing contest
to mark UNESCO’s International Day of Innocent Children.
A summer camp will also be organised.
The centre is an important focal point for a community still
traumatised by the three-day siege last September at the town’s
school no.1, and its bloody conclusion in which 338 people,
172 of them children, died.
While most of the victims have returned home from hospital,
the situation in Beslan remains tense. School No.1 stands in
ruins filled with flowers, toys and candles. Half of Beslan
would like to see the building destroyed, half wants to preserve
it as a monument.
In this grief-stricken and confused environment, the visiting
nurses, probably the new centre’s most precious asset,
offer an important lifeline.
Twenty nurses visit the 578 people most directly affected by
the hostage crisis. They keep accounts of their visits and on
Fridays have follow-up training and stress counselling, as they
too try and cope with their experiences.
“The Russian Red Cross visiting nurses service has a unique
role – it allows us to reach the traumatized people in
their homes,” says Larissa Khabaeva from the Ministry
of Education of North Ossetia who considers the RRC project
to be one of the most important of the 16 psychosocial support
projects currently being implemented for Beslan.
Apart from a special course in home care, the RRC visiting nurses
develop their knowledge of therapeutic communication and active
listening - effective psychological methods that can be performed
by non-professional psychologists.
“This know-how will stay with the local community after
the programme is over,” says Alexander Matheou, head of
the International Federation’s delegation in Moscow. “Moreover
the programme envisages extending this experience further to
the North Caucasus region where the needs in psychosocial support
are great.”
Visiting two families a day, the nurses provide psychotherapy
and support by talking and helping them adjust to their new
roles: grandfathers are alone with their granddaughters. Mothers
and daughters are left without their brother and father. Parents
have lost all their children. The stories of struggles go on.
“The Red Cross is the only organization that does not
just call us, but comes to our homes to help,” says Svetlana
Dzebosova, a 40-year-old woman from Beslan and a survivor of
the siege, along with her 15-year-old daughter. “The Red
Cross has been with us from the first days of the tragedy. We
got used to it, and now when the Red Cross calls us, we do not
ask why, we just follow.”
After its three days of terror, Beslan saw an inflow of aid
and gifts from all over the world: the good-hearted yet temporary
establishment of recovery programmes by international aid organizations;
camps organised by countries in Western Europe to help school
children overcome their grief.
However, in those first few months after the siege, there was
little structure or screening as to what was being given to
the survivors. On one occasion, a family that lost three children
received a gift of three school backpacks.
Now, the children of Beslan are trying to not only cope with
their transformed community, the enormous gaps in their school
and their new roles in what remains of their family, but also
with their new perspective of their town of 32,000 people after
being exposed to the standards of Western Europe.
The Russian Red Cross hopes the new centre will be a place to
help support and revive the remnants of Beslan: to bring together
a town that has lost all desire for social activity and all
sense of purpose. The centre provides not only visiting nurses
but also a venue for the residents to collectively recover from
last September and regain a sense of community through support.
This is not only seen in the weekly teas but also in activities
for celebration or leisure. Oksana Tanklayeva explained:
“We have had them for families and for school children
on their last school day before the summer holiday. We organize
entertainments, try to invite personalities from Beslan to come
and meet our guests. This communication is very important –
it is based on our clients’ interests and concerns. We
hope that it will help them return to normal social life.”
But the tragedy was less than a year ago, and many activities
inevitably lead to discussion about the town’s recovery.
“When it comes to concerns connected with the September
tragedy, our psychologists come to lead the conversation on
how to overcome the grief. Some guests share their experience
of other tragedies not connected with the siege and how they
survived the grief. It is so rewarding to see how our guests,
former hostages, become warmer and more open. We want these
Wednesday meetings to become a local tradition,” she said.
Often on these Wednesday nights residents attend simply to try
and show support for their neighbours. Svetlana Sarkisova who
lost her son 27 years ago is one.
“I came to the Red Cross tea party last Wednesday because
I wanted to be with my neighbours and tell them how hard it
was, how I lived, and how my grief helped me to find new strength
within me, and I began to embroider.”
“I expressed all my love to my son in my embroidered pictures,
they decorate my home and the homes of my relatives reminding
us of our boy.” She adds, “Life goes on and we must
live it.”
At least with the community centre, the Beslan residents aren’t
going through this alone.
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Children
from Beslan’s school No. 1 have a computer class
at the Red Cross centre (p12941)
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Russian
Red Cross visiting nurse Larissa Solaeva visits Madina
Sasieva, who was among the hostages during the September
2004 siege, together with her children David, nine, and
five-year-old Tzerasa (p12942)
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Oksana
Tanklayeva, a psychologist at the Red Cross community
centre in Beslan, hosts a tea party to mark the end of
the school year (p12943)
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Russian
Red Cross staff with pupils from school No 1. The lessons
taught at the centre are based on the wishes of the children
and their parents (p12944)
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The
Red Cross nurses who make home visits to the worst affected
families have regular follow-up training and stress counselling,
as they too try and cope with their experiences (p12945)
Beslan children at an Ossetian folk dance class at the
Red Cross centre (p12946)
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